Description

Poetry. "Wilkins' poems are savage and beautiful, full of hard-won lives and a godawful tenderness. In this book Manifest Destiny is more than political rhetoric—it's a call to find the limits of survival. It has dust-stunned men, hardscrabble women, and a patient devil, sharpening his teeth."—Traci Brimhall

"For Wilkins, the American West is no theme park or romantic diorama. He offers an earnest glimpse into past and present landscapes that are real and imagined, mourned and celebrated and witnessed—for these are human landscapes."—Michael McGriff

Author Bio

Joe Wilkins's debut, KILLING THE MURNION DOGS, was published by Black Lawrence in 2011 and subsequently named a finalist for a number of national post-publication book awards, including the Paterson Poetry Prize and the High Plains Book Award. Wilkins's other books include a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers: Growing up on the Big Dry(Counterpoint 2012), winner of a 2014 GLCA New Writers Award—an honor that has previously recognized early works by the likes of Richard Ford, Louise Erdrich, and Alice Munro, among others—and another book of poems, NOTES FROM THE JOURNEY WESTWARD (White Pine 2012). He has recently published two chapbooks, one of essays, We Had to Go On Living (Red Bird Chapbooks 2014) and one of poetry, Leviathan (Iron Horse 2014). Wilkins's latest book is Far Enough: A Western in Fragments, a chapbook of short fiction from Black Lawrence Press (2015). Wilkins lives with his wife, son, and daughter in McMinnville, Oregon, where he teaches writing at Linfield College.